Thank you Christopher Burkett for alerting me to Heller v. Uber Technologies Inc., 2019 ONCA 1. The case is reminiscent of California’s Senate Bill 1241 (review here) and of an article that I co-authored with Jutta Gangsted [‘Protected parties in European and American conflict of laws: a comparative analysis of individual employment contracts]. The starting point of the California, the EU rules, and the Canadian judgment is the same: employees cannot be considered to really consent to either choice of law or choice of court /dispute resolution hence any clause doing same will be subject to mandatory limitations.

Here, an arbitration clause requiring arbitration in the Netherlands of disputes between drivers and Uber was held to be invalid and unenforceable, because it deprives an employee of the benefit of making a complaint to the Ministry of Labour under relevant Ontarian law.

Of note is that the judgment applies assuming the contract is one of employment – which remains to be determined under Ontarian law. Of note is also that the Court of appeal rejected Uber’s position that the validity is an issue for the arbitrator to determine because it is an issue going to the jurisdiction of the arbitrator. Uber invoked the “competence-competence” /kompetenz kompetenz principle in support of its position.

In C-1/17 Petronas Lubricants, the CJEU held end of June, entirely justifiably, that assigned counterclaims may be brought by the employer in the forum chosen by the employee under (now) Article 20 ff Brussels I Recast to bring his claim. In the case at issue, the employer had only obtained the claim by assignment, after the employee had initiated proceedings.

The Court pointed to the rationale underlying Article 22(1), which mirrors all other counterclaim anchor provisions in the Regulation: the sound administration of justice. That the counterclaim is merely assigned, is irrelevant: at 28: ‘…provided that the choice by the employee of the court having jurisdiction to examine his application is respected, the objective of favouring that employee is achieved and there is no reason to limit the possibility of examining that claim together with a counter-claim within the meaning of Article 20(2)’ (Brussels I, GAVC).

Evidently the counterclaim does have to meet the criteria recently re-emphasised in Kostanjevec.

Thank you Cozen O’Connor for alerting me. California’s Senate Bill 1241 was signed into law at the end of September. It will apply to employment contracts entered into, modified, or extended on or after 1 January 2017.

The Bill will feature in a forthcoming article that I am co-authoring with Jutta Gangsted. I have not (yet) studied the preparatory work in detail however the Bill immediately calls for comparative analysis with the EU’s’ approach to this particular ‘protected category’: what is a labour (employment) contract; how does ‘primarily resides and works in California’ compare with ‘habitually carries out his work’ and ‘domicile’; when exactly is a contract ‘modified’ (on this see for the EU, Nikiforidis). The starting point of both the California and the EU rules is the same: employees cannot be considered to really consent to either choice of law or choice of court hence any clause doing same will be subject to mandatory limitations.

In David Powell v OMV Exploration and production limited, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled on the (absence of) jurisdiction for UK courts in the case of a UK domiciled employee, employed originally to work from Yemen but in reality working from Dubai, hired by a Manx incorporated company run from Austria. The employment contract was subject to Manx law and to a choice of court agreement in favour of the courts of the Isle of Man. The Tribunal however ruled that the case was within the scope of the Brussels I Regulation – albeit like the tribunal itself, the Appeal tribunal does not systematically review the three alternative grounds for domicile of Article 60 of the Jurisdiction Regulation.

Domicile was found to be in Austria, for this is the place where the company was effectively managed from. The UK could claim jurisdiction on the basis of Article 19, were the employee found to habitually work in the UK – quod non.

A classic example of the employment chapter of the JR, with a bit of exotic flavouring (Manx) and, even if not altogether tidy, a correct conclusion on Austrian domicile.